Out of the Darkness
by Wickedgal08
Summary: "In the pouring rain, they meet, hands tangling together, lips fumbling clumsily together, hearts crashing like ships against the rocks." It takes a while, but eventually Stefan and Elena reconcile. Stelena one-shot.


**Title of fic: **Out of the Darkness  
><strong>Characters featured: <strong>Elena, Stefan.  
><strong>Rating: <strong>T to be on the safe side.  
><strong>Summary<strong>: The reconciliation process between Stefan and Elena takes a while but finally they get it right.

Out of the Darkness

….

It takes minutes after Klaus' death for her eyes to find his.

Minutes for her to crumble with relief, and though its not his arms she finds solace in – he always curses his brother for being able to position himself just at the right place at the right time – he manages the smallest of smiles for her.

It takes minutes for her to manage a smile back, but they share something in that moment. Not quite understanding, not quite relief, but some blend of the two. His mind travels back to the night of the bridge, and even now he cannot quite justify his actions to himself. He wonders if that's what she's remembering too.

It takes minutes for him to shake that dark thought out of his mind, minutes for it to resurface, her devastated sobs shattering his heart again and again, and minutes for her eyes to level with his, and her look says it all.

_I never thought we'd reach this point, but we have. _

It takes exactly one minute, and counting, for the remnants of his humanity to come crawling back, prompting the tears he's sure have been building up inside him for a long time to come flooding to the surface.

_I had her...and I lost her. _

The night they broke up, the night she broke his heart, is nothing compared to this.

This is love struggling to find its way back, and stopping along the way knowing exactly how far its come but realising the futility of trying to go back the way it came. There is no turning back now.

All he can hope for now is for there to be some middle ground between love and hate they can rest before she decides which emotion firmly resides in her heart in regards to their relationship.

….

It takes days before she can approach him, before she can look him in the eye and ask the question she's been waiting to ask for a long time.

"When you got your freedom back...how long did it take you before you felt anything again?"

His response is as cutting as it is honest.

"It came back the moment Klaus gave me my freedom. Think about it, Elena. A blind man who gets his sight back doesn't continue to stumble around in the dark. He makes the most of the light he is given, because he knows what it's like to have lost it."

She doesn't reply, doesn't give him the cutting response that most blind men don't ever get their sight back, that unlike him they aren't given the chance to have what they were robbed off restored to them.

But boy does she want to.

It takes days for her to relax around him, but her eyes follow him whenever he moves, distrustful, although he's never betrayed her. At least not in that sense.

It takes days for her to find the energy to work out again, although the threat is gone. In her mind, there'll always be something to haunt her, something to threaten the safety of this town and she has to be a hell of a lot stronger than she has been up until now to face it.

He comes in sometimes, observing quietly. When the worst of the tension disappears between them, he offers the occasional tip, walking forwards to help her, his fingers tracing her skin lightly.

It takes for the effect of his touch to kick in, but when it does it leaves her face looking coloured, a deep flush blooming in her cheeks.

Her eyes level with his, something passing between them.

She wishes it was remnants of the love they once had between them.

Maybe it is.

It takes days for her to work out the truth, and even then her first response is to chronicle it in her journal because even now she finds it so hard to talk to him without remembering everything.

….

Minutes roll into hours, which roll into days, which tumble into weeks.

It takes weeks for some sort of normality to fall into place. He builds a routine, starts to rebuild his life.

He jogs, finding it refreshing, a better way to get himself off the blood, swapping one addiction with another. He jogs everywhere, from the Mystic Grill to the Lockwood's Estate, to the woods.

He avoids Wickery Bridge, however.

He doesn't need a dark reminder of how one night completely screwed up everything forever, but he finds even jogging near it brings up echoes he'd rather block out altogether. But that's not a privilege he gets.

If it's haunting her, he sure as hell has no right to try and block it out.

It takes weeks before that really sinks in, but even as he re-enrols in school properly, starts seeing her face everywhere, something else sinks in

He doesn't belong here.

And he's a fool for thinking after everything he could try and continue to keep up that pretence.

….

It takes weeks to notice his behaviour is off. More so than usual.

She takes to studying him, watching with worried eyes as he slams his locker shut extra hard, or yells at Damon for something trivial.

She worries he's back on the human blood.

It's weeks before she dares ask, however, and when she does, his dark eyes lighten somewhat, and he lets out a bitter chuckle.

"Do you really think I'd put you through all that again?"

It's only after she gets home she realises why her heart seems to have leapt into life all of a sudden.

He put the emphasis on her, on putting _her _through that again rather than keeping it on himself. It's the first time in a long time where she's felt like the old Stefan might've resurfaced, possibly for good.

If only she allowed herself to hope anymore.

It takes her weeks to pluck up the courage to tell him she kissed Damon again. It didn't lead to anything, and she puts the emphasis on that, but she said she had to be sure of something, and she felt horrible for doing it.

It's to his credit he asks what she had to be sure of, rather than going off the rails.

"I had to be sure about what my heart was trying to tell me. I've slowly been falling for Damon while you've been gone, but there's just something – I just..."

He puts a finger against her lips.

"Don't ever try and justify yourself to me, Elena. Like I've said before, you're better than both of us."

He walks away, leaving her there unsure whether to smile or cry.

She does both.

….

It takes months for some sort of routine to fall back into place in all of their lives.

He switches back on the animal diet, and for once Damon doesn't fire patronising comments at him.

Even he seems to know where to draw the line.

But it's clear Damon will never trust him again, and that's something he'll have to live with. Even as the months roll by, the distrust never fades from his brother's eyes, and he doesn't even try to fix the situation.

Why should he?

Trust can be bent, it can be manipulated, twisted at will, but breaking it has an irreparable effect on it, and he's sure the trust between him and Damon – if it had ever existed in the first place -is gone.

But Elena is a different story.

Every time they pass, her stares become soft looks, perhaps even tender. He tries to pretend otherwise, tries to walk past her with an air of indifference, tries to pretend her confession doesn't still _hurt _but it's hard to pretend with her.

When he finds her in an empty classroom one day, sobbing softly because Damon has decided to leave – for reasons yet to be fully explained – it breaks down the last few walls he put up. He crosses the room, takes her in his arms, and promises her he won't leave.

But he remains here as – a friend, a companion, or something else entirely – isn't quite apparent to him.

But months after her confession, when he confronts Damon about his ridiculous decision to leave, his brother cuts his lecture down, delivering a few home truths into the bargain.

"I'm leaving because it hurts, Stefan. I can't be what she needs. End of."

"What can't you be exactly?"

"You!" Damon near enough roars. "God, even after everything you've done, she still cares about, still loves you. I can't compete with that, and I don't want to. Not anymore."

He flinches at the hostility in his brother's tone, but this time it's a hostility he can deal with, a hostility he knows.

"You know she loves you," he says quietly, unexpectedly. "More than she'll ever be able to say. She loves you because you were there for her when I wasn't."

"Yeah? That right?" Damon remarks sarcastically. "Well, maybe it isn't enough anymore. I don't want half her heart, Stefan. You'll never admit it, but you don't want that either. I figure rather than let history repeat itself, I'd do the noble thing for once and leave."

"Where are you going to go, Damon? Mystic Falls is your home."

"Was," Damon corrects. "And unlike Elena, I'm going to keep my feelings about it in the past where they belong."

As his brother strides towards the door, fully intending to never return, they share a look, a look which seems to say a lot more than words ever could.

It's the look only brothers who've loved the same girl can ever understand.

_Was it all worth it? _

The slam of the front door signals Damon's answer, leaving him to ponder his own.

….

It takes another few weeks before she finds the courage to return to Wickery Bridge.

This time, it has a different reason to haunt her, but she figures it's time to face her own ghosts.

When Stefan joins her, she automatically flinches.

It's not through choice but through experience.

"Hey," he murmurs, standing beside her, both of them gazing out at two completely different memories.

"Hey," she whispers, letting her hand slide next to his.

They stand in silence for a few moments, out of respect for the two lives lost here, and the one which almost joined them months and months ago.

She sighs, letting her hair fall across her face, her head leaning over the bridge trying to see something – her past? Her future? Her parents? - but whatever she's trying to find, it isn't there.

"It's been a while since Damon left town," she murmurs, partly to herself. "I keep thinking I'll see him around somewhere but so far..." She leaves the sentence unfinished, giving him a sideways glance. "How are you doing?"

"I'm doing okay. Damon's an adult. He can make his own decisions. He decided to leave and we just have to accept that."

"I miss him," she admits.

His gaze levels with hers. "I know. I do too."

"Isn't it weird? Me talking about your brother like this to you?"

"It was," he admits. "But I've done a lot of bad things to you, Elena. It would be weird if you still had feelings for me, especially since Damon was there to protect you when I was...absent."

A deep flush colours her cheeks.

She almost looks...mortified.

"Would it be the worst thing in the world if that were true?" she asks, sounding sad.

He looks at her, for once at a loss for words.

He doesn't know the answer to that question, because he doesn't know if he's yet earned the right to be back in her life that way.

She's not quite sure herself.

Can she really set herself up for more heartbreak this way? Is it possible he's changed? Is she fooling herself by believing remnants of the old Stefan have come back to her?

She looks back down over the bridge, trying to recall any memories of actually being saved that night.

She can't, of course, having been unconscious at the time.

But it seems she still can't resist trying to see the good in the bad, the redeemable in the lost, the light in the dark chasm.

….

Nine months, twenty six days.

That's the time after Klaus' demise when, after minutes, weeks, months of trying to convince themselves there's no turning back after everything that had happened, they find each other.

The rain disguises the tears, makes it easier to mask their combined pain and pleasure at this moment.

Pain, because even after all this time, some wounds will never quite fully heal.

Pleasure, because even after all this time, some feelings never quite die.

In the pouring rain, they meet, hands tangling together, lips fumbling clumsily together, hearts crashing like ships against the rocks. His hands run through her hair, hers rest against his ears, almost as if she's trying to block out every other audible distraction.

His lips assault hers again and again.

Her hips buck against his, their desire hard to fight, and so he picks her up, her legs wrapping loosely around his waist, and they realise at the same time they're both sobbing fiercely.

"I love you," she screams into the wind. "It's always been you, Stefan."

"I know," he cries in between kisses, "It's always been you, Elena."

"I love you!"

"I love you more."

"I lost you, and I gave up hoping you – you - " She begins to cry again. "Oh, Stefan..."

But he silences her, dropping her down to the ground gently, simply holding her.

"We have all the time in the world for that kind of talk," he says. "Can I please just – Can we just not deal with that until later?"

She laughs, the tears dancing off her eyelashes.

"I've missed you so much."

He smiles.

"I've got you. I've got you," he soothes, repeating those words over and over like a mantra. "I'm not letting you go again. I promise."


End file.
